Loveharts to Mongolia

Picture the scene. You’ve just pulled off the merger of the decade, creating one of the world’s biggest law firms with offices spanning the planet’s major commercial and financial centres (and Boulder, Colorado). What next?

You dust off the globe and begin to plan your next step on the road towards global domination, of course. Now, your first alliance post-merger has to make a bit of a splash so you start thinking…São Paulo maybe? Doha perhaps? Sydney, at a stretch?

Hands up who said Ulan Batar? Well, somewhat surreally, that’s precisely where the good ship HoLo will next be docking after it entered a formal agreement with local firm GTs Advocates (see story).

Hogan Lovells is breaking new ground for an international firm by establishing a presence in Outer Mongolia, with current secondee partner Michael Aldrich set to be joined by a number of associates (don’t all rush at once, kids).

But, the transatlantic giant is, as ever, lagging behind Kent County Council in terms of its Mongolian relationship. The local authority sent a delegation to Baotou way back in November 2009 in an effort to capture more work (see story).

Once again, where the public sector leads, private practice follows.—————————Also on TheLawyer.com: Who’s leading the way on AIM?; Hausfeld goes after Volvo; and join the debate on Burges Salmon’s ethical challange.

Once again, it seems that the lawyers know that they do but the journalists just a little less?
Hogan Lovells is not lagging behind at all but far ahead!
Baotou is a Chinese city in China (in Inner Mongolia) and a presence in China is something very different and much less entrepreneurial than Mongolia!